By Melanie Nathan, Aug 18, 2026 In June 2026, Ghana hosted the Fourth African Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Family, Sovereignty and Values in Accra, bringing together parliamentarians and conservative “pro-family” actors from across Africa to coordinate regional opposition to LGBTQI+ rights, abortion, gender-related rights and other policies characterized by participants as foreign interference in African cultural and religious values. The conference culminated in the ad

By Melanie Nathan, August 13, 2026. There is a tendency to report Africa's expanding anti-LGBTQ laws one country at a time. Uganda passes a brutal law. Ghana advances another. Senegal increases its penalties. Burkina Faso criminalizes same-sex relations. Niger follows. Mali follows. Each becomes a headline for a day or two. Then the world moves on. I cannot look at these developments that way. For years, my work through African Human Rights Coalition and as a country-conditio